Christopher Columbus and the New World of His Discovery — Complete eBook

They brought some women and boys with them, and the
fleet must now have had a large number of these willing
or unwilling captives. This was the first organised
transaction of slavery on the part of Columbus, whose
design was to send slaves regularly back to Spain in
exchange for the cattle and supplies necessary for
the colonies. There was not very much said now
about religious conversion, but only about exchanging
the natives for cattle. The fine point of Christopher’s
philosophy on this subject had been rubbed off; he
had taken the first step a year ago on the beach at
Guanahani, and after that the road opened out broad
before him. Slaves for cattle, and cattle for
the islands; and wealth from cattle and islands for
Spain, and payment from Spain for Columbus, and money
from Columbus for the redemption of the Holy Sepulchre—­these
were the links in the chain of hope that bound him
to his pious idea. He had seen the same thing
done by the Portuguese on the Guinea coast, and it
never occurred to him that there was anything the matter
with it. On the contrary, at this time his idea
was only to take slaves from among the Caribs and
man-eating islanders as a punishment for their misdeeds;
but this, like his other fine ideas, soon had to give
way before the tide of greed and conquest.

The Admiral was now anxious to get back to La Navidad,
and discover the condition of the colony which he
had left behind him there. He therefore sailed
from Guadaloupe on November 20th and steered to the
north-west. His captive islanders told him that
the mainland lay to the south; and if he had listened
to them and sailed south he would have probably landed
on the coast of South America in a fortnight.
He shaped his course instead to the north-west, passing
many islands, but not pausing until the 14th, when
he reached the island named by him Santa Cruz.
He found more Caribs here, and his men had a brush
with them, one of the crew being wounded by a poisoned
arrow of which he died in a few days. The Carib
Chiefs were captured and put in irons. They
sailed again and passed a group of islets which Columbus
named after Saint Ursula and the Eleven Thousand Virgins;
discovered Porto Rico also, in one of the beautiful
harbours of which they anchored and stayed for two
days. Sailing now to the west they made land
again on the 22nd of November; and coasting along it
they soon sighted the mountain of Monte Christi, and
Columbus recognised that he was on the north coast
of Espanola.